One of my earliest memories is that of the grand conquest of Super Mario World. I remember playing the predecessors, but this one stands out in my mind. It's still one of my favorite classics, although I am also partial to Super Mario Brothers 3. I read a lot of books growing up, especially comic books, but as I near the halfway mark to twenty-eight videogames have been one of my sustained hobbies. I use the word hobby, but in all honesty I dread the day I stop playing. They have always been apart of my life, even when my family could not afford for it to be. I had friends who had all of the systems; I would go directly to their home when I got off the bus. These were the days when Nintendo reigned supreme. Super NES, the original NES and the Sega Genesis. Eventually, my mom got me a Sega Genesis of my own from a local pawn shop. We would rotate through our favorites during our hours long gaming sessions. Slumber parties would be punctuated by Clayfighter matches, passing around a controller taking turns on Super Mario World, or making a futile fun on Battletoads. To tell you the truth, I'm fairly certain I enjoyed playing much more than they did. We all enjoyed GoldenEye, though. My multiplayer prowess was not nearly what it is now, but I held my own by looking at my opponents screens. There was something about the challenge of figuring out puzzles that brought me a thrill that sports or playing on a playground could never match. Especially that one time I pretended to be Spider-Man on the monkey bars. I slipped and fell about four feet, face first, into the dirt. I remember lying there, breathless, thinking about ways to get through the Turbo Tunnel losing only two lives.
My dad was also fond of games, which probably made it hereditary. He always tells me about how he showed my how to play the original Mario when I was only two. While I don't remember this, I don't doubt it. I find that I have the hand-eye coordination of an individual who has worked at developing it for the vast majority of their life, but whether that's a correlation or a causation doesn't matter to me. I do remember every Sunday before church, I would watch my dad beat Street Fighter II. We almost always played with Chun-Li, and almost always had a hard time with Sagat. Bison usually wasn't a problem. I also played navigation as an extra set of eyes through all of Core Designs Tomb Raider. I also played the same role of operational support in Metal Gear Solid. And Driver. These are very fond memories of my childhood. By this point I had inherited or received as gifts a Nintendo 64, NES, Super NES, PS1, GameBoy Advanced (I loved me some Fire Emblem) and of course the Dreamcast. I remember spending an unhealthy amount of time playing Power Stone and Pokemon. One time my mother came into my room to wake me up, and I'm fairly certain I made some comment about not being charged up enough, in reference to Pikachu. I also sunk numerous hours into Cool Spot and Vectorman. Around this time I was reading the Animorph series, so my imagination flourish, even with all the mediocrity. I've always had a love of books, thanks to my parents, but I had a developing obsession with videogames. I stole my first gaming magazine when I was nine years-old, and while it's something I'm not particularly proud of, it shows my desire to be apart of the gaming culture by any means. I remember Electronic Gaming Monthly and Gameinformer used to come with demos, so it was the best of both worlds. I would read the biggest articles and play those demos until they had a permanent laser ring etched into them.
Later on, when I moved to another part of the country, I made what would turn into a lifelong friend. This friendship was courted around video games. We had a practice where we would rent two games we knew we would like, and try a third. This allowed us to become acquainted with lots of games. Being open-minded and willing to give at least anything a try once is what the gaming community is based around. Destrega, which we affectionately nicknamed Death Ray Gun. Bloody Roar, a supremely underrated fighter that became me and my dad's new Street Fighter II. Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles, a Battletoads wannabe with watered down difficulty plagued with random bugs. Seriously, one time I played as Mace Windu on the Coruscant level, I suddenly fell out of mid-air and lost one of my precious lives for no reason. Mace made the sound he makes as if he had been hit but there were no enemies around. My friend and I nicknamed him Negroman and pretended the game was set right after Jim Crow Laws were abolished. Shenmue was an awesome game, but I will always associate the title with a god-awful veggie burger I ate while playing it. We also played a lot of Power Stone and Super Smash Brothers. These were our all of our favorites. I don't remember the names of the games we hated, but one sticks out in my mind. Some sort of Pokemon clone for the original Playstaion where the "pets" looked like giant roaches. My memory is a little fuzzy on the details, but yeah. It was terrible. Something else that turn out to be a terrible idea to try? My friend and I playing as Mario and Link against Fox and Samus on Level 9 with 99 lives in Super Smash Bros.. That was my first gaming marathon, and I don't think I played the game again after that. For those who don't game, or have never played the title, it looked something like this, except with adolescent swearing instead of poor music choices.
As I've gotten older, my addiction has come more to light. It started out simple where I would just have to play, no matter what. There was a time where I hooked up the Playstation 3 to the living room television so that I could play Fallout 3, even though we had guest. As a matter of fact it was Fallout 3 that solidified that I had a problem. I've never gotten into game like World Of Warcraft or Second Life because I felt that life could be crappy in itself, why start another one. But I felt alive in Fallout 3. If you don't know me or know by now, I'm a bit of an oddball and I've always been an outcast. I never got into sports. I wasn't into the institutionalized misogyny of growing up a male in America. I've never become a religious devout. But with videogames, I feel apart of something. Even if I never go to a convention, tournament or formal gathering I know that this is big. This is what feeling I got when I first exited Vault 101. As I explored the Capital Wasteland, I began to feel as if I had been missing out on this digital, alien landscape that was videogames. Up into this point I only considered them a hobby that I was passionate about. Now, I wanted it to be my way of life. I would exit Vault 101 at least six more times on three total systems. I didn't play obsessively, I just obsessed over the playing. The details, the crafting, the relationships. While games like this had existed long before this, I had not been exposed to this level of depth. Everything had just been surface obsession. Now I wanted to get caught up on all of the new classics. Bioshock, Call Of Duty 4, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., The Darkness, God Of War II. Any major release that had a decent review score was now on my to-do list. Of course I had also played Halo, but only locally. While in the military, we would get four of the original Xbox's together in the media hall and attempt to recreate "It Hits The Fan" South Park episode. The Release of Halo 3 brought my first midnight release and my first high-definition experience. My girlfriend at the time was heavy into Grand Theft Auto, I never go into GTA, but I believe I will with the new-gen GTA V.
But the elephant in my room is online multiplayer. Going up against strangers in competitive exhibition is what truly sent me over the edge. I cursed, I rejoiced, sat on the edge of my seat, waiting for my opponents next move. If someone were to ask me why I play or enjoy it so much, I would compare it to chess. It is a thinking game. What's this person going to do? How long do I have before their backup arrives? If I shoot them, it will attract a lot of attention. But is a melee worth the risk. We're this far behind, what resources do I have to help us come back. All of this has fueled my addiction to multiplayer, but also Xbox Live. After work I would come home and hop online. Sometimes I would play until three or four in the morning, with my television volume on five as to not disturb my family. I had a problem. My new high went by the name of Modern Warfare 2. I cannot describe to you the amount of hours I invested in this game. I bought it multiple times on multiple systems and played it for nearly two years. This is where I crossed into the point of no return. Although, I really had no intentions on returning.
All of this has just been the meaty bits of what's lead to my addiction. I could probably fill an entire encyclopedia for causes for the habit that I now embrace. I mentioned earlier that I never got into sports. In the traditional sense this is true, but anybody with a brain would know that eSports is on the rise. The fact that millions of people now play, watch and take part in some way helps me to not feel ashamed anymore. I know that I am in good company.